


ad meliora

by coffeeren



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Canon Divergence, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Cats, Character Study, Multi, Painting, Post-Canon, mentioned roy/ed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21833824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeren/pseuds/coffeeren
Summary: Alphonse Elric has always had the soul of a scientist and the heart of an artist.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric/Winry Rockbell
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	ad meliora

**Author's Note:**

> this is mostly a little character study on al's feelings on getting his body back, because i absolutely love alphonse elric.
> 
> the little bit of canon divergence is just that the elrics stay in amestris and, obviously, the relationships

When Alphonse first gets his body back, he can feel nothing other than pain, physically— which is absolutely great, he revels in it, in how rough the stone ground feels under his tender skin, the cold air, the glare of the sunlight in his eyes — his _eyes_! —, his parched throat, and, curiously, most of all in the way his stomach twists up aggressively in hunger. He missed pain, too.

Emotionally, though, he feels _everything_.

The first thing he feels is, unsurprisingly, loved, and Ed touches him and all Al wants to do is cry because he loves his big brother so much and he’s missed being able to feel his touch and his warmth and his love more than anything else in the world. He’s devastated, then, in a sort of grief, even, for he’s never getting the last five years of his life back and there’s just so much he could have felt and smelled and touched and tasted and had ripped away from him. Excited too, _elated_ , because now he can have some of Winry’s apple pie, Mrs. Hughes’ quiche, he can hug Lieutenant Hawkeye and Colonel Mustang like he’s always wanted to, and pet Black Hayate and feel his soft fur under his fingers and the roughness of stray kittens’ little tongues on his cheek.

Alphonse feels so much he doesn’t even know how to begin to react to any of it.

Edward helps him up and to a hospital, because _god_ , he really is weak and emaciated, but Al can’t bring himself to care, because he has a body and he’s here and he has the most amazing big brother of the whole world, and, for once, everything is exactly as it should be.

Ed doesn’t leave his side for one second, except when one of them has to use the washroom, but even that isn’t without some reluctance, and Al’s heart hurts for him. Ed has blamed himself for a lot of things that were never his fault for too long, and Al _knows_ Ed sleeps slumped over his hospital bed with a hand on his arm because he feels he can’t risk losing him again, and wishes he had the strength to smack him for it. It’’ll just have to _wait_.

“Brother, you should go see our friends,” he tries, after three nights Ed’s fallen asleep like that again, and Al’s starting to worry he’ll screw his neck up permanently.

“Our friends,” Ed repeats, like the words are foreign to him. Al doesn’t bother hiding his disapproval.

“Yes, Brother, our friends,” Al says. “Teacher, Major Armstrong, Lieutenant Hawkeye, the Colonel.” Ed makes a face when he mentions Mustang, like he’s just swallowed a whole raw lemon, and Al wonders if he can fool even himself with that kind of reaction. Except Al can’t accept it now. Not anymore. “Edward, you _know_ what he’s just been through. I would go and offer him my support myself, if I could.”

Ed groans and drops his head back to the bed, unmoving. Al ruffles his hair.

“I’m not the only one who needs you,” he says, the words absolute truth, and it does the trick. Ed makes him promise to behave, and Al laughs so hard it hurts because _Edward_ asking _Alphonse_ that is just too funny, and then he blows a raspberry and leaves.

He makes friends with the nurses while Ed's away doing whatever, and Mrs. Hughes and Elicia drop by to visit him and Al cries again when he sees them. He had missed crying.

After a few months in Resembool, when his body is finally feeling better and Al can hold himself up on his own and walk on his own two legs, they decide to move back to Central to study. Ed gets an earful from Granny Pinako about keeping in touch, and Al laughs the whole time and he loves them. Winry makes scary threats, waving all sorts of heavy tools at Ed, then wraps Al in a bone-crushing hug and cries discreetly.

Lieutenant Hawkeye takes him sightseeing through the city, with Ed and Colonel Mustang not-at-all-suspiciously absent, and Al eats all kinds of street food and she asks him to call her _Riza_ because that's what her friends call her, even the Colonel now, and Al very nearly cries again.

Alphonse makes new friends in his classes, learns that he sort of likes parties and alcohol tastes terrible but being tipsy is kind of fun. He's still only sixteen and wonders if Riza would arrest him if she knew.

He has his first kiss with a boy he finds cute when they're both a little drunk, and it's weird but he decides that he likes it, kissing pretty people, so he kisses a lot of them. Ed kicks him in the butt for waking up with a hangover the next day, then brings him coffee and pancakes in bed, because his big brother is the best thing in his whole life. Al loves being human.

Al loves his body. It’s perfect. All bodies are perfect, he realized that not long after being deprived of one, but he _loves his body._ Al stares down at himself and at his hands and into mirrors a lot, and people must think he’s some kind of narcissist, but that’s okay. He develops a penchant for fashion and cooking, because he will treat his perfect body the way it deserves to be treated. He talks to _everyone_ , because now when he talks to people they don't see a scary expressionless metal husk, they see _Alphonse_ , and he loves Alphonse, as it turns out.

Alphonse also learns he can hold pencils and pens and brushes with some semblance of finesse again, and he wants to _paint_. It doesn’t make any logical sense, but he passes by a shop in downtown Central where an older man is painting a pretty scenery one day, and then he wants to paint the taste of Winry’s apple pies and the warmth of Ed’s hugs and the smell that lingers in the air after he’s just used alchemy, and it feels like a good way to let all these _feelings_ out before his heart bursts from being so full of them.

So he buys all the supplies he will need and some that he won't, sets the easel up in the brightest corner in his and Ed’s flat and paints paints and paints in abstract splashes of colour until the canvas looks like the faces and sounds and smells and touches he's come to cherish so much

Mrs. Hughes hugs him like a mother— like his own mum did and like she hugs Elicia. Al cries when he realizes he will never know what Mr. Hughes’ hugs had felt like. Lieutenant— Captain Hawkeye, _Riza_ holds more than hugs, like a responsible big sister exhausted of worrying about her little brother whom she loves very much, and he feels very safe. Winry— Winry throws her arms around him and squeezes his body — his human body — as though she can't bear the idea of letting him go, and Alphonse is in awe.

“What does love feel like?” Al asks Ed once, in the quiet of the library when Ed's immersed in some physics book and he can't concentrate.

“‘Dunno,” Ed answers absently. “Like being warm all over when you see ‘em, I guess.”

“Hmm,” Al contemplates. He feels warm when he sees a lot of people, so that can't be just it. “When did you notice?”

“Notice what?” Ed asks, frowning at the pages in front of him, and Al wonders if he's even listening. He knows a good way to find out.

“I mean, when did you first realize you were in love with the Colonel?”

Ed’s head snaps up like he's been burned, and Al bites the inside of his cheek not to laugh. “ _What_?”

Al says nothing, because it's not like Ed's subtle when he's sneaking out all dressed up in the weekends, and he may have not had eyes once but he was never blind. Ed couldn't hide this from him to save his life.

“ _Roy_ ,” Ed says, blushing furiously. “Brought me dinner once, without me asking. I was getting some reading done in his office, and my heart started beating so fast I thought I was gonna have a heart attack. It was then.”

“That's adorable,” Al says, with no mockery whatsoever. “I think I'm in love with Winry.”

Being in love is a wonderful, beautiful feeling, Al finds out. He had never lost the ability to love, because it belongs to his soul and not his body, but he loves all the ways his body reacts to seeing Winry, in the tragically few occasions she can come up from Rush Valley to visit, even the embarrassing ones.

Working up the courage to tell her is hard, _too_ hard, for now, so he paints that too, his love and her face and her beautiful hair, and Ed tells him he's being gross and Al laughs at him.

Al thinks he’ll be fine even if he never gets to tell Winry he loves her, because just feeling it and being able to touch her might be enough.

Al convinces Ed to let them adopt a cat. Well, to let _him_ adopt a cat, but since they live together Ed will have to at least tolerate her. There’s a grey tabby that hangs out around the university with a crooked tail and a missing leg that he’s made friends with, and he brings her home that same day, with new cat blankets and cute bowls and bags of high-quality cat food.

He names her Soot. Ed looks at all he’s bought for their new family member and swears revenge, less than two hours before falling asleep on the couch with a cat shaped lump by his side under the blanket.

Edward, mature and understanding adult and loving big brother that he is, makes good on his promise of revenge. Which, for Ed, means locking Al and Winry in Al’s bedroom the next time she’s visiting. Al’s not sure what he thinks of this part of having a body where his skin feels like it’s catching on fire.

Winry is considerably more confused than he is, but, as he is guiltily relieved to noticed, apparently just as embarrassed.

Al takes Winry’s hands, both of them, too fast and maybe squeezing too hard, but it’s the best he can manage.

“I’m in love with you,” he chokes out.

“Al!” she nearly squeals, and it’s so, so cute and he wants to kiss her, but doesn’t know if it’d be okay to do it. Then she throws her hands around his neck and she’s _so close_ and he can’t be reading this wrong, he’s too good at reading people—

  
Winry kisses him, again and again and again, and hours later he’s still thinking about it, so he paints the tingling in his lips and the weight of her hands on his shoulders and the warmth in his heart.

Very little changes, which Al wasn’t expecting. He wasn’t sure what to expect, so that’s alright. Winry comes to Central to visit more frequently, and he gets to kiss her and hold her hand and she doesn’t sleep on the couch anymore. Ed’s smart enough not to comment on it. Al returns the favour by not saying anything when Ed starts spending the night out more often than not.

His life isn’t perfect. Has never been and never will be, but it’s good. It’s great and fulfilling and he loves it. There are some things — like the way his chest tightens when Riza invites him to catch up with Ed’s old team because _they miss him_ , or Soot’s soft soft little forehead against his chin when she curls up in his chest to sleep (Ed called her greasy _once_ and Al very nearly punched him) — things that painting is never satisfying, not comprehensive enough.

So he writes about them. Writes with clumsy words and shy sentences, if only so he’ll never have to forget what it feels like to be alive again.

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know what you think!! this is unbeta'd so also feel free to call me out on any atrocious mistakes


End file.
